All the newborns learn life through Trial and Error.
My almost 2-year-old son unconsciously, follows this method, while playing with his toys. He has a big cube with various holes of different sizes and shapes, and he tries to put smaller objects into these holes. The difficult thing for him is finding the corresponding shapes and sizes.
Eventually, though, he will get it right! He will be capable of seeing the hole and finding 'the right object with the appropriate shape and size to fit it.
We, grown-up trailer editors, do the same!
In our infancy, we use different trailer styles to 'match' a film!
When we have grown, we study the film first and match the trailer to it later!
In most cases...
Let's have a funny experiment!
We will do the opposite of what is described in The Rhythm of Silence.
Please:
- Load the William Tell trailer in your browser
- Hit 'play' and close your eyes!
- When you finish listening, return to read the rest of this post.
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Well...?
What did you hear?
But most importantly... What did you see in your mind?
Did you see images of a historical movie in which humans were fighting humans using bows, arrows, and swords?
Or did you see an epic fight between some Marvel heroes or maybe between Autobots and Decepticons, in the latest Transformers sequel?
I bet you it was the latter!
This trailer is the perfect example of a failed recipe.
The movie was not the problem.
Nor was the recipe wrong.
To simply put it... It was the wrong recipe for this movie.
They tried to fit a different shape and size of sound design into a different shape and size of film.
As trailer editors we should edit like grown-ups, not like a 2-year-old who tries to figure things out by trial and error!
We should always aim to add value to the film, creating a 'matching' trailer!
-Yannis
